Giving Voice to Antiracist Educators: Changing Political Discourse, Policy, Practice, and Public Engagement

• In Event: Educators, Youth, and Policy Mediation and Sensemaking at the Local Level

Abstract

This paper presents findings from the first large-scale study of antiracist education strategies amid a widespread political backlash against teaching about race and racism. We share the experiences of educators who strive to become antiracist – from their personal journeys to more deeply understand their own biases and their political and social journeys to navigate everything from the resistance of their colleagues to state laws that restrict curriculum or local book bans. The vast majority of the nearly 150 educators from across the U.S. who participated told us why the antiracist pedagogical and leadership strategies matter in the lives of their students and, paradoxically, how the complex political resistance to these antiracist strategies have negatively affected them and their teaching.

Authors

• Amy Stuart Wells, Bank Street College of Education

• Sophia Vazquez, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Xinyu S. Pan, Bank Street College of Education

• Dianne Delima, University of California - Irvine

• Charlyn Henderson, Teachers College, Columbia University